In today’s lesson, we’ll look at a verb profiter. This verb can cause a bit of confusion as its main meaning in French “to enjoy” and “make the most of”. For example, je profite de mon temps ici (I enjoy my time here).
profiter
to enjoy
Profiter meaning and translation
Word origin
According to Wiktionary.org, the French verb profiter is related to the Latin profectus (progress, success), which is the past participle of the verb proficere (to make, to accomplish, to effect).
Profiter conjugation
Profiter is a regular ER verb. This means that its endings are the same as other regular ER verbs when conjugated in the present tense.
Je profite I enjoy
Tu profites You enjoy (singular, informal)
Il, elle profite He, she enjoys
Nous profitons We enjoy
Vous profitez You enjoy (plural, formal)
Ils, elles profitent They enjoy
Example sentences
The most common usage of profiter is “to enjoy”. In our first three example sentences, profiter is followed by the preposition de + noun. This post on our site provides an overview of the preposition de.
Je profite de mon temps au Mexique.
I enjoy my time in Mexico.
In the previous example, au Mexique means “in Mexico”. The preposition au is used because Mexique is a masculine country. This post on our site covers prepositions for countries detail.
Les étudiants profitent de leurs vacances en Suisse.
The students make the most of their vacation in Switzerland.
Il est important de profiter de l’instant présent.
It’s important to make the most of the present moment.
The verb profiter comes into play when you want to say “Enjoy!” or “Have fun!”. The expressions are: “Profites-en !” and “Profitez-en !”. The indirect object pronoun en means “it”. French Today does a great job explaining en in this post.
Profites-en !
Enjoy! (informal, singular)
Profitez-en !
Enjoy (formal, plural)
Anther usage of profiter is “to take advantage of” in the negative sense, almost meaning “to use” somebody”.
Les enfants profitent de la générosité de leur père.
The kids take advantage of the generosity of their father.
How to say profit in French
We cannot end this lesson without mentioning how to say the English “profit” in French.
In French, the noun for “profit” is bénéfice. There are two verbs for “to profit”, in the sense of “to make money”: Gagner de l’argent and se faire de l’argent. “Profit” in the sense of a company “profiting” is tirer profit de and tirer avantage de.
Conclusion
Et voilà ! You now know how to use profiter in French. Now have a look at our lesson covering the verb gagner, which means both “to win” and “to earn”. You can also check out our lesson covering vacances (vacation), a word we mentioned in this lesson.
